Police chief – a WCH native – killed by gunman

2 nursing home employees killed; gunman dead

KIRKERSVILLE, Ohio (AP) — An armed man gunned down a new village police chief — a Washington Court House native — on a street Friday morning and then killed two employees in a nearby nursing home, where he later was found dead, a sheriff said. No nursing home residents were injured.

The slain police chief, Steven Eric Disario, a 1997 Washington High School graduate, had headed the Kirkersville Police Department for only about three weeks, Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said. Disario was shot on a street near the Pine Kirk Care Center, and the two employees and the gunman were found dead inside, Thorp said.

Disario, 36, was a father of six children, with a seventh on the way, the sheriff said.

Thorp called it a hard day for all.

“We’ve lost a police officer. It’s just a tragic event,” he said. “I guess the only peace of mind is that the threat is over.”

By early afternoon, flowers and flags appeared in an impromptu memorial outside the village police hall.

Disario was responding to a report of a man with a gun, and his last radio communication said he had the man in sight, Thorp said.

Responding officers found Disario on the street and then investigated a report of a gunman at the nursing home, Thorp said.

Some nursing home residents barricaded themselves during the shooting, but none of them was injured, he said.

Police weren’t immediately able to identify the gunman and were trying to determine what, if any, relationship he had with the nursing home, Thorp said.

The shooting closed down the main street in the village, which was flooded with police officers from several surrounding agencies and with ambulances. The village of about 500 residents is roughly 25 miles (39 kilometers) east of Columbus.